Saturday, November 26, 2016

Some real-time in-engine captures of the RIG suits I had the honour of
designing for Infinite Warfare multiplayer. The work done by the
character team at Infinity Ward is amazing! It was a career
highlight to have my designs realised to such a high level. Posing and
lighting the assets in the model viewer and screen grabbing these images
was something I was looking forward to doing from day one! Good fun.

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Call of Duty! This project has been my primary creative focus for the last couple of years, and it's been a great honour and a pleasure to have been involved with such a potent franchise. There's not much bigger than COD! The development studio for Infinite Warfare, Infinity Ward, has been my home since January and part of last year, and it's been a dream come true to live and work in Los Angeles. Ever since I was a kid, looking through art-of books of my favourite movies, LA has been the place I always wanted to be.

I had been working remotely, as a freelancer, on the IW project for a while, creating concepts like the C12 here, so it was a natural next step to join the team in house in sunny California. The project needed a dose of solid, believable, and badass science fiction flavour, and that's exactly what I love to do! The C12 was the first thing I designed for the project, and it turned out great. The brief was for a walking tank, an enemy robot with a threatening presence, bristling with armaments. I love the right hand appendage, a combination door breaching hammer and articulated claw. The arms are mounted on curved shoulder rails, so they can rotate around and track various targets. There is so much articulation in this guy, it really taxed the rigging department! Bone count be dammed! ha ha

This is the accompanying human sized enemy robot, the C6. A menacing eyeless axe shaped sensor head is mounted on a 360° degree swiveling pintle frame, so the head can target you from any angle. I imagined the player shoot one in the back, only to have the head spin 180° round and target you, the weapon following a split second behind, helped by the highly mobile shoulder and upper arm sections, allowing the robot to move in ways a human can't, and creating a unique adversary. The work done by the character department to model and texture these robots was insane. It was a true honour to have my concepts brought to life by such a talented team!

A couple of variations on the standard SDF enemy soldiers. The idea was to create an iconic look, something clearly a guy in a suit, but still dehumanised and threatening enough to make them clearly the badguys, and worthy of killing by the hundreds. I added some frames to the 'muzzle', similar to the mounts on a modern day soldiers helmet, that can have additional optics or emergency breathing apparatus attached, to create an aggressive look. The reinforced polymer face pieces have a variable opacity laminate, I imagined a scene where you see a soldier seal up his transparent mask, then the mask turns cloudy white from the bottom up, obscuring the face and turning the visage into an eyeless skull. These SDF soldiers live in their suits, and have multiple redundancy life support systems, with visible added connective cable and hoses, to create a unique inside-out look to contrast against the clean and slick suits of the Earth forces.

Ethan, or E3N, the buddy brobot you as the player have alongside for the game. This guy was fun to design, and I love how the head and upper arms worked out. My brother was the inspiration for this character, he's a big badass dude with the right friendly demeanor that I thought was perfect for this robot. I wanted Ethan to look and feel like someone who would have your back in battle, and be down for some extreme sports in down time. My bro is into motocross, so for the articulated pistons on Ethan's neck, I gave him gold cylinders to reflect the awesome looking forks you find on race bikes. Ethan's head is also a combination of elements from a motocross helmet, with articulated lens hood pieces from a camera lens, and the top hood piece forming a cap and visor peak shape.

Really happy with how his head was resolved. It's tough to come up with a unique and iconic robot head with the right character and ability to emote.

The final design for the UNSA SATO Marine helmets. With the hero Marines, I wanted to create a rugged and tough suit that paid homage to some classic Marine ideas. Mainly the thick armoured neck and arms. The thick neck was an attempt to create a different silhouette than the usual space suit form of thin neck/big helmet. I kept the helmet as slim and 'operator' as possible, while pumping up the neck, to create a unique look that feels badass, and harks to the leatherneck moniker of the Marines.

With the arms I wanted the suit to feel like the rolled-up-sleeves look that's popular with Marines, and seen in some classic movies like Aliens. The lower arm sections and neck utilise mechanical pressure to protect from the vacuum of space, while the rest of the outfit is a traditional gas pressure space suit. Taking inspiration from the latest concepts of future space suits from places like NASA, with their elasticated tight fitting sleeves and lines of non-extension, I created a rugged military look with a thick armoured feel and beefy grid like pattern.

I've loads more concepts to share in the future, so excited to show some of the other cool characters and weapons I was lucky enough to create for the project. Be sure to check out the game too, I'm playing through the final product now and it's rad, so cool to see my work realised to such a high level by a huge and talented team. Cheers!

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Thursday, September 15, 2016

I recently had a fantastic experience visiting London for the first time and presenting a talk at Industry Workshops 2016. The event was incredible! Fun, well run, in a great part of the city, and filled with super rad and incredibly talented people. Among them was Anthony Yoshida, who had modelled one of my older robot designs as a project. He later sent me the model and I kicked out these quick keyshot renders.

As someone who works primarily in 2D, it's a real treat to get such a well modeled 3D version of your design, something you can play with in 3D and see how it looks from other angles and different lighting. And doing lots of pretty renders makes you feel like you're doing work!

Huge thanks for Anthony not only for this sweet model, but also for showing me some wild urban Paris while I was there. Cheers bro!

Sunday, July 24, 2016

Monday, August 10, 2015

Here's a little taste of one of the rad freelance jobs I've had the privilege of working on over the past year. This is one of many designs I've created for the game Figureheads, and it's absolutely been one of the most fun jobs I've ever had. Look out for a lot more of these coming soon!

I feel bad for not posting here often enough. I've been doing heaps of work though, honest!
My Carbon project has had to take a back seat due to the badass project I'm working on in LA at the moment, although I'm always planning stuff for it. It will all be worth it though, and I've got a shit load of rad stuff to share in the mean time, when I can, from a variety of jobs.

Monday, June 15, 2015

I didn't get a chance to do a whole lot on Chappie due to other projects, and the only stuff of mine in the Art Of book, and therefore ok to show, are these super rough early scribbles for what was to become the Moose.

I did enjoy making these dino-bots though. A highly mobile attack helicopter/tank on legs.

Sunday, May 31, 2015

Hey! Seems like forever since I posted anything here! I've been working hard on a bunch of great freelance jobs, and have spent the last month in LA working with some amazing clients, with big things in the works. I can't say anything more about that stuff just yet, so in the meantime here are a couple of pics of a friendly little Phidippus Audax I found in a garden over here.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

My Carbon project has been expanding in my mind from a coherent collection of human-future conceptual design into a coherent collection of stories and characters, a place for all the scenarios, worlds, and IP ideas I've been thinking about for years. It's getting epic, and I'm pretty excited!

It's going to take some planning though, and the kickstarter side of things will too. I want to do things right and make something special, so basically the kickstarter will go live when it's ready, which may take a while. But it will be worth it! Not to mention I have some other projects that need some serious time, and a shit load of awesome freelance work too.

In the mean time I'll keep everyone posted with how it's going, and post some artwork from time to time. A big thanks to those that have gotten in touch to say hello and support the project, cheers!

The piece above is something I sketched one morning last year before doing a live demo. I decided it would be too hard to paint in a couple hours, and did a crappy photochop for the audience instead, but at least I've had a chance since to render it up. It's what I would consider filler material in the book, so I though it would be more worth posting as an update instead of keeping it exclusive for the book. The exclusive Carbon work will be much more involved, interesting, and unique!

These images were fun though, and are all painted, no photos. Except for elements in the background of the top one. And the case in the bottom one. But that's pretty much it I swear!

The general idea with this guy is I wanted to draw a robot with a big gun, something a human soldier couldn't wield without it being mounted to a vehicle. It's just a bit of fun, and I like the way you can draw a robot holding a gun, then use the gun on it's own in another image. Two birds with one air burst grenade!

These images will also feature in the next installment of the 'Nuthin But Mech' books, which is shaping up to be the best yet. Be sure to pick up a copy when it's out. Cheers!

Monday, October 27, 2014

Hey! Just a quick update to let everyone know that big things are happening with Carbon, and I'll have some exciting stuff to share real soon. I've been having a lot of fun thinking and planning about where I can take this project, and the scope of the thing just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I've also been very busy with a lot of really awesome freelance work as well, on a variety of super rad and super secret projects. All this means that the Carbon kickstarter won't be happening just yet, but good things take time right! Keep an eye out for more news and details soon, cheers!

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Introducing Carbon, the first full length book showcasing my personal ideas around science fiction art and design. This is a project I'm very excited about, a chance to delve deep and develop the various worlds and concepts that are the result of a life long passion for nature, science, technology, and futuristic science fiction ideas.

These images are explorations I have been working on to develop the design and art direction of the book. It's been a lot of fun to work with concepts springing from the Carbon name. Carbon is the workhorse element of nature, it forms the strongest bonds and is the basis for life as we know it in the universe. Carbon nanotubes and graphene take their hexagonal molecular structure and hold great promise for artificial muscle, advanced building materials, powerful motors, faster computing, and so much more.

Carbon will contain a wealth of exclusive artwork, design, and descriptive text breakdowns, including in depth development of several personal projects that I wish to evolve into short film and video game concepts. In this sense Carbon forms the first step towards turning these dreams into reality.

I'm looking forward to exploring the graphic design of the book, and want to create a bold and exciting product that will be much more than just a collection of art and ideas.

I'm also looking forward to exploring ideas in environment design and story telling, realms I rarely get to delve into with my regular conceptual design work.

I have a heap of artwork for Carbon already, but this is just the start and familiar to anyone who knows my work. The book will allow me the opportunity to really push myself and create fresh new work, to go crazy and expand on some of the more involved ideas I've been thinking about for years. I have a massive pile of sketches ready to be fleshed out, some real exciting stuff!

The kick starter campaign will have to wait till I get back from a trip to the US for Comicon (more on that later), so keep an eye out, it should be something special! Cheers!

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Thursday, February 20, 2014

I don't really do this normally, but here's an early WIP of one of the pieces I'm working on for my future book project. I gotta reserve some exclusive art so that people will buy it instead of just saving the art from the internet right? So while this is all I can show here, rest assured that the book will have heaps of new stuff! And not just 'military robot with gun' designs either, not that there's anything wrong with them right?!

Look out for the kickstarter video and campaign for the book around July! I got big plans for this book, gonna be epic! And it's just the first step towards some much bigger projects in the future, the first few of which are already in the works!

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Here's some more artwork from World War Machine. First up a higher res version of the initial design for the player character, the quintessential War Machine. I had a lot of fun working on this friendly chap!

And here are a bunch of quick conceptual sketches for a variety of enemy units. My thinking with these was to push the anatomically inspired biomechanical feel of the War Machine into something more twisted and deformed. The various shattered AI remnants of humanity are at perpetual war with themselves, and create these machines to wage their battles. Attack types and methods of movement and combat are drawn from the broken and disjointed totality of human knowledge that's contained in the AIs, from militaristic science to the animal kingdom. Robot zombies if you will!